The Guarani (Portuguese: O Guarany, romance brasileiro, 1857) is a Brazilian novel written by José de Alencar. It first came out as a folhetim (serial) in the newspaper Diário do Rio de Janeiro, but due to its enormous success Alencar decided to compile his writing in a volume. A plausible explanation for this success might be in the fact that novel spoke of freedom and independence, arguing for a nativeness that could be found in tropical Nature and in the indigenous people of Brazil.
Years later the novel was turned into an opera performed in Italian and called Il Guarany (1870), by Carlos Gomes, among other places it was presented in Milan and New York (it is a known fact that the author did not appreciate the final result).O Guarani is regarded a foundational text of Brazilian Romanticism, but it gained international projection by being translated into Spanish, German (Der Guarany, Brasilianischer Roman, Maximillian Emerich,1876) and English (The Guarany, Brazilian novel, James W. Hawes, 1893).
The novel is still widely read nowadays, especially at Brazilian schools as an introduction to novel reading, but also by anyone who enjoys a thrilling adventure story. Literary criticism has tended to link O Guarani to the works of Fenimore Cooper, Chateaubriand and the noble savage from the Rousseauesque tradition. However, this interpretation of the novel has become outdated as recent academic works show also how dark, sexual and gothic the novel is.
Il Guarany (The Guarany) is an Italian opera-ballo by Carlos Gomes, based on the Brazilian novel O Guarani, written by José de Alencar.
The libretto was written by Antonio Scalvini and Carlo D'Ormeville.
Performance history
The world premiere was at La Scala, Milan on March 19, 1870. The opera received additional European productions.
The first Brazilian performance was in Rio de Janeiro on 2 December 1870, at the Teatro Lírico Fluminense.
The opera is notable as the first Brazilian opera to gain international acclaim outside of Brazil.
Maria Alice Volpe has analysed the historical subtext of the Indianismo movement behind the opera.
